Nanjing blogs

Jibber-jabber

Which age is gonna be the best to become a dad ?Becoming  a dad in my early 20's will it be able to influence my kids more than what I can do in my old age or age never is a problem for this??.At this age of robots  and Internet how much influence will I have over my children  to lead them .Will the robot manny at the playschool be inspiring my kids more than I can.My kids are gonna be out in this complex world and all those complex questions evolving in their minds have to be answered .Are they going to be convinced by my answers or by their technological friends?Children of all ages are exposed to technology and that  for sure is  stimulating  them in all aspects. Am I gonna loose that intimacy and emotional attachment from my kids that I am having with my dad .As I grow old there is going to be a technological gap between me and my kids which is gonna put them in danger if I may not be able to guide them properly. When I am saying this I know how many  tweets and SMS I make everyday ,how many hours I am spending online , internet friends,long hour chats ,etc..



"Their Brains get used to too much auditory and visual stimulation and in the absence of these stimulation ,they do not know what to do with themselves.They get anxious ,restless and bored ". This is what a Stanford university professor of psychiatry and behavioral science have to say when asked about the impacts of technology on kids.To be a dad is it very difficult and complicated when will I know I am ready ? My biological clock gonna send an alarm when I am ready..  ho thats  gonna calm me down. 
 DAD I LOVE YOU FOR EVER.
According to the anthropologist Maurice Godlier the parental role assumed by human males is a critical difference between human society and that of humans' closest biological relatives - chimpanzees  and bonobos  who appear to be unaware of their "father" connection.Hello nanjing Dads and future Dads Hello

Jibber-jabber

The internet as we know it today,traces its origin back to defense department in 1969. But here we are. China being the number one consumer of Internet and world wide web with the active user population of approximately 420 million according to China Internet Network Information Center. High ranking government official says “China's Internet is open”.

Word on the street

I took a stroll to Xuanwumen Lake on the weekend and caught a strange sight as I walked through the main gate: a huge mess of green stuff in the water. I walked closer and discovered that they were water lilies.

Looking closer, I caught this snap of the seed pods:

Later, I was walking through Xinjiekou station and saw some street people selling seed pods in the station.

I've never seen these before, so I when I got home I did some research. The plants in the water have the scientific name nelumbo nucifera. The plant is a perennial – that means it lives for more than two years.

According to this link, the plant is classified as endangered in China. It has been cultivated here for over 2,000 years. The seeds can be pickled, candied, friend, or eater raw. In China, they are also ground up and used as a base ingredient in mooncakes.

Apart from the seeds, this species also grows colorful lotus flowers. More from Wikipedia: "Most Buddhist, Chinese, Hindu, Japanese, and other Asian deities are depicted as seated on a lotus flower. In Buddhist symbolism, the lotus represents purity of the body, speech, and mind as if floating above the muddy waters of attachment and desire."

In India,the lotus flower is seen as a sign of divine beauty coming out of the dirt, while the expanding petals suggest the expansion of the soul. In China, appreciation along the same lines of thinking took root in Chinese cultures with this famous statement made by the Confucian scholar Zhou Dunyi (according to Wikipedia):

"I love the lotus because while growing from mud, it is unstained."

Arts and media

Is Stallone your man?   This is the movie for you if you worship the ground he floats over.  I saw the poster and knew the movie was coming out, however, I didn't know much about the film before viewing it.  I didn't actually know he directed it until the opening credits began....

Expendables follows a group of aging mercenaries, most of whom were big stars at some point in the 1980s.  As for the story, it's a little weak on exactly what is going on.  this could be from local censorship hacking pieces out of the film (there's a scene near the end that's obviously missing something).  We know the Expendables are hired to take out a dictator of a small island country but what exactly is happening in that country is a bit vague.  Sure, there's some meanness and killings but the problem isn't fully established. 

The idea of the Expendables  is pretty cool.  A group of mercenaries struggling to cope with their personal problems while fighting the world's bad guys.  Granted, most of the issues these guys have are relationship problems that tend to drag.

Expendables has a strange and often child  like perspective.  There are moments where it feels like a high school WWE fan put sequences together but I'm sure it was Stallone attempting boost his image as "The Action Star/Father Figure"- similar to Cruises editorial control over Mission Impossible III.

If you like action that keeps going and going like the energizer bunny then you might love Expendables.  There are some ridiculous sequences that take you out of the film and there are some pretty cool ones including a character operating a gun system on the nose of a plane that is totally frakkin' cool.

Does anyone remember the disaster made by Mel Gibson's hairdresser; Paparazzi?Expendables shares some of the corny cameos that film did, including one by Arnold himself. Expendables is far superior to Paparazzi but it does have a similar flare that would be best left on the editing room floor.  

I really do hate Paparazzi and think it is the worst film of all time.  If at any point in the future someone has a reason to start burning books and films again, it will be because of Paparazzi.

Jet Li has probably the weakest voice besides Ray Park of any action star.  In Expendables he plays partly to an Asian-American stereotype.  I didn't think many people in the audience would laugh at some of the jokes aimed at Jet but they did.  They only joke I laughed at and no one else did was when his character started asking for a pay raise to help his family out.

Expendable has some small holes and some big holes, however, it's target audience is not going to be overly concerned with things like character development and continuity.  It's purely an action film at heart.

The thing that I really love about this film is the ending.  Even dramatic films and "serious" films don't come close to how Expendables deals with the issue of family, and that's the odd element here.  How can Stallone get so many easy things wrong and this overly complex issue right?  Maybe it's a fluke or a stroke of distant genius.

What happens to one of the characters in the beginning comes back in the end, yet not in the way you would expect in an action film.  He is forgiven by the group and even brought back into the family with no tention or animosity towards him.  There is a bond between these men that transcends friendship and even the notion of family itself.

They are truly a family that looks after each other; where no one is left behind, where no one is Expendable.

Jibber-jabber

So I'm going out tonight!

Just want to make a brief comparison of the two schools I went/go to, University of California Berkeley and the University of Chicago. (Just for fun!)

1. Academics:

Apparently the University of Chicago is more like Ivy League and Cal Berkeley is still struggling as a public school.  

Student-Faculty Ratio: UC Berkeley 20:1, UChicago 6:1 (Can't complain though. I mean we're only paying a quarter of the UChicago tuition at Cal.)

Apparently the professor who is teaching you at UChicago is the guy who wrote you textbook in UC Berkeley!

However, while nobody noticed I had been ditching school for a month in Berkeley, an absence from class in UChicago obviously dragged my grade down to A-.

2. Athletics:

Even though UC Berkeley feels like UCLA's nerdy older brother, we're still better than UChicago.

3. Diversity

UC Berkeley:  African American 4%, Asian American 42%, Hispanic 12%, International 3%, Native American 1%, White 31%, Unknown 8%, Out-of-State Students 15%

UChicago: African American 5%, Asian American 13%, Hispanic 7%, International 8%, Native American 0%, White 47%, Unknown 19%, Out-of-State Students 80%

I really don't understand why they call UCLA as University of Caucasians Lost amongst Asians, but we seem to have more Asians in University of Contemplative Bombast.

4. Drugs

Errr wait a sec, did you just say weed is illegal? Really?

Here's a list of most popular drugs for both schools.

UC Berkeley: Adderall, Hallucinogens, Marijuana, Cocaine (Typical Berkeley conversation: "What? You're on diet?" "Ya I need to trim down for that dress I saw in Union Square." "Why would you go on diet while you can do crystal meth?")

UChicago: Alcohol, Tabacco, Caffeine

5. Greek Life

UChicago has 8 fraternities and 3 sororities while UC Berkeley has 42 fraternities and 21 sororities. We even have Asian frat at Cal! "California, knows how to party..." And UChicago has alcohol-free frat parties (or is that in Northwestern?)

6. Safety

I'll give  FAIL to both of them. Oakland is one of the most notoriously unsafe place in the States and Hyde Park is nothing better.

7. Weather

Both cities suck! Chicago is extreme, and San Fran is, well cold all year round. But at least I can get a tan in Chicago during summer!

Jibber-jabber

Harold and Kumar arrived in Shanghai with wide eyes. They took a train to Nanjing, and then they took a taxi to their new home for the next year, English Frist, a national chain of language schools.

English Frist had really slick brochures that they used to lure young naive graduates with. In reality, they were one of the most notorious language mills in town. When they arrived at the school their bags were confiscated.

Two migrants with gold in their teeth began to rifle through them. Then Harold and Kumar were pushed into a room. There, a scowling man with a Belgian accent read them the riot act.

He told them that he didn't take any guff, and that as long as they behaved, he would consider giving them their passports back. He told them their apartments weren't ready, so they could sleep in the classrooms, "just for a few months." Then he put them to work, on 12-hour split shifts, teaching 'mixed classes', which meant grandmothers, business people, and toddlers.

The courses were called "Super TOEFL" and were designed to boost TOEFL skills through the use of jazz dance routines.

Harold and Kumar taught for seven days straight, before they finally had enough.

"I need to blow off some steam," said Harold (the Asian guy), so let's go to Castle Bar.

They started pounding 10 RMB tequila shots in Castle Bar. They met an American guy, he seemed like a nice old fellow.

However, as the tequila kept flowing he started getting creepier, talking about doing prison time in Detroit, and muttering how he was going to lock Harold in his basement and then make Kumar "wash my hair".

So Harold and Kumar raced out of there and went to 1912, to a club called Mazza. In Mazza, they met a nice group of Chinese guys wearing leather jackets and dark sunglasses. They seemed like friendly lads, sitting round a table munching on a fruit plate, just having some good wholesome fun.

"If they eat fruit, they must be good people," Harold reckoned. So, when one of the guys offered them full glasses of whiskey and told them to down it in a single shot, Harold and Kumar agreed.

"We're in China," Kumar reasoned, "So we should respect the local customs."

Downing that whiskey was the last thing they remember. Harold woke up in the Mazza toilet. He was stripped to his underwear, and his shoes were gone.

Kumar was not so lucky. He was in a hotel room on the wrong side of the tracks. A midget was sitting on his back. When he looked up, the crazy American dude from Castle Bar was there.

"You're going to wash my hair. But first, open your mouth."

Moral of the story: if strangers offer you drinks in Nanjing clubs, be wary. This story is based on things that have actually happened...

Musings

I am officially under contract now to my new school: Jiangsu College for International Education（江苏国际预科学院）.  I am an English "instructor" in the Canadian Program. I shall report for work on August 30th--the first day of our program semester.

The school treated me like a prince today. One staff member accompanied my wife and baby to look for an apartment, while a second staffer took me for my physical exam and helped get me oriented in my new job. They paid for everything all day, and I couldn't have hoped for anything more from them. Of course, we are still in the honeymoon period--the school and I--but, I have worked in this type of program twice before, so there shouldn't be too many surprises for me.

Our campus  is in Gulou sandwiched between Nanjing University and a second school. It is near Beijing and Shanghai roads.

[BTW We could use one more teacher if you know anyone who is currently underdemployed. (You could contact me privately.)]

Nanjing news

According to an article on Alibaba.com, the transformation in the Qinhuai River over the past five decades is vividly depicted in a local tongue twister: "Vegetables and rice were cleaned (in the river) in the 1950s; clothes were cleaned and irrigation was done in the 1960s; the water quality deteriorated in the 1970s; fish and shrimp vanished in the 1980s; and people's health was finally threatened (by the river) in the 1990s."

I walk past a stretch of this river almost every day. For most of the summer, the river has been swollen, spilling well over the banks. Last week, I noticed something else unusual: a huge amount of fish, huddled close to the shore. Here's a shot:

Towards the shadowed edge on the right, there were several large fish as well, they seemed to be gasping for breath. Unfortunately, every time I got close with my camera, they would sink into the murky depths.

Over the past week, there seemed to be a massive die-off, as an unusual amount of larger fish were floating belly-up in the water. I see no reason to show you pictures of dead rotting fish, however, so you'll just have to take my word for it – there are a lot of very big fish in the river. Considering how polluted it is, I find it amazing that they can survive.

Then again, given the large amount of fish that I saw dead in the past week, something odd is going on in the river.

Nonetheless, as so many fish were clustered to close to the shore, it was a foregone conclusion that people would be out with nets and buckets, scooping them up. A few times last week, I saw guys wading through the water in their underwear scooping up some pretty big fish. On the day I brought my camera with me, however, there were mainly people standing on the banks, scooping up as many as they could.

Here's a look into the bucket. I assume these fish are going to be eaten. They seem to be some type of catfish, but I'm no expert. Can anyone identify this species?

Let me finish with some questions: 1. Has anyone else noticed a large amount of dead fish floating in the Qinhuai last week? 2. Can anyone identify the species of fish in the bucket? 3. Do people really scoop fish out of the river for eating? Is that safe?

That's all. I hope you enjoyed this blog.

Jibber-jabber

                             Gypsy Party and Hello Nanjing at Regalia hotel group

Regalia Hotel,in 1865 area is a beautiful hotel located in good and a quiet area bit far from the center,you must get a taxi to get there. It is very clean and elegant throughout with lovely little touches. Gypsy Party was outback a floor below the main entrance right out on the square, with excellent environment surrounded by trees.

Friendly and accommodating staff took me to the HN table. I was not the first to join the table but it indeed was my very first time with HN team out in the society. Patric who was my source to the party, whom I haven't met before was already there. I called him to be sure which one is he. He is well-looking and friendly Irish guy. And there they were Anil and Frantastic. They are also very friendly guy, which is part of their business I assume.

And there were other people from HN ,I met few of them, these two guys from Sweden,food and beverage manager manager of Prime International and few others with whom I didn't have the introduction. But From what I saw they all are very friendly and wel-coming.

But most surprising to me was to know gordon and monkeynuts. Oh,they were completely out of my imagination. I didn't talk with monkeynuts and didn't talk much with frantastic either. What can I say, I am little shy guy when beautiful girls are around.

I was sitting between two Irish folk, Patric and gordon, it was interesting listening to Irish accent. I love that accent and their music. And I must say you will be really surprised to see gordon for the very first time. It's not his look, he is very handsome and very friendly man but your imagination of him.

All in all, It was great to meet with HN team out from the internet world. They all are friendly trying to build a expat community in Nanjing but they are just an organization promoting events in Nanjing. If we expats really want to build a one big community of foreigners and Chinese together,then its up to us. HN is doing its job, tells us where and when to meet and give some basic ground to talk about and chance to really get to know each other and build one big community of friendly people.

From my experience, it didn't feel like I was meeting these guy for the first time,which I was. I went there alone, I was meeting everyone for the very first time. I was little nervous after I entered the hotel and was walking toward the table. How is this day going to end up?? It was all that was in my mind but luckily it wasn't bad. I was glad I joined the party with HN.

Talking about gypsy night, It was good to be around woods and water,with cold wind blowing outside in the summer of Nanjing. Meal was ok, plenty of choices,buffet style. And in drinks,there was beer and tequila with some special ingredients of Regalia Hotel group,I personally like the taste but wasn't much of tequila though and some other drinks I think.

It was clever of them to add fireworks. And belly dance in traditional Xinjiang music was excellent. I think it was Xinjiang music but I am not so sure. They really need to upgrade their rubbish sound system. There was fortune teller as well, but I doubt her. If she was real good then she might have warned manager of the place about their gypsy party.

I really didn't feel like party at all. It was like sitting and dinning with friends and family in one restaurant and listening to live music from another restaurant. And drinks finished sooner than the party itself. If this is their thinking of Gypsy Party night or any party at all then I must say don't waste your time and money on this hotel. Party organized in the hill beside graveyard was far more better than this where music system were running on battery and source of light was small fire lit in the middle.

But if you are looking toward having romantic dinner with your girlfriend or formal family dinner then this might be the place. Staff are nice and helpful. Very service minded hotel with excellent cleanliness and facilities all around.